Project Management · Estimating · Quality & Safety
Caleb
Kuhlman
Fifteen years in construction, from framing houses to managing a $5.6M structural-steel portfolio on Department of Energy, National Guard, and Marriott work. Now estimating engineered steel water-transmission pipe at NWPX.
- Pocatello, Idaho
- (208) 317-0959
- calebkuhlman94@gmail.com
Overview
I learned this trade hands-on, one first at a time. The first nail I drove on my father's framing crew. The first pad I poured. The first tractor I drove, then the first skid steer, excavator, hydraulic drill rig, and boom lift. Then the first job I bid, the first subcontractor I signed, and the first project I closed out. Fifteen years in, the field half and the office half are one career, and each side makes me better at the other.
The through-line is documentation. Every office role has started with building the paperwork system first, then running the work through it: trackers, logs, procedures, and templates. The AISC quality system in Division 03 is the largest example; the project controls on the NRIC Dome in Division 02 are the most detailed.
Every figure on this page comes from project records or is marked as an estimate.
Current
- Role
- Pipeline Estimator, NWPX Infrastructure (Northwest Pipe Company), remote
- Since
- October 2025
- Scope
- Engineered steel water-transmission pipe for North America's largest manufacturer of it; AWWA standards, ISO 9001 system
- Volume
- 4–6 bids a month, about $10M combined
INL NRIC Microreactor Dome Renovation
Job #023031 · Idaho National Laboratory (DOE) · Structural steel subcontract · $1.8M · Project Manager, kickoff to closeout · 2023–2025
A structural retrofit of the former EBR-II containment dome at the Idaho National Laboratory site for the National Reactor Innovation Center. The steel scope was a planned, temporarily braced, controlled demolition of sections of the existing steel-and-concrete dome wall, followed by fit-up and welding of four structural inserts. The largest was the 20-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide equipment hatch, which had to be set within 1/16 inch for the door to operate. A loading dock and life-safety upgrades rounded out the scope.
The work sat inside a DOE national laboratory: site security clearance and badging, required DOE and INL training for every worker, and a non-disclosure agreement on project documentation. That set the standard for planning and paperwork on everything below.
What the role covered
- Planning and schedule. Built the baseline schedule and phase-code structure, ran the kickoff (10 Oct 2023), and updated the master schedule monthly. Added a winter-weather allowance for Dec 2024 to Feb 2025 that was only partly consumed, so work resumed early.
- Crew and shifts. At peak, a 14-person crew on two shifts for round-the-clock welding. Owned union-hall dispatch, onboarding, site-access and badging paperwork, WPS and welder qualification tracking, and the training records INL required.
- Client coordination. Weekly standing coordination meeting with the client lead; focused sessions for crane lifts and for respirator requirements before high-fume welding.
- Change management. Prepared every change request package and kept the change-order log. Fourteen change orders by August 2025, none in dispute. The largest, a $364K life-safety scope (21% of contract), was approved within days of submittal.
- Project controls. Built the phase-and-quantity tracker (installed quantities vs. budget, crew productivity, billing breakouts) and co-authored the 2025 man-hour projections mapped week by week to the activity schedule.
- Safety. Co-developed the project JSA through seven revisions as scope evolved, signing off Rev. 7 before dome cutting and heavy lifts. Zero lost-time incidents.
Problems solved on site
- Hatch fit-up on a curved dome. A 20 ft × 20 ft frame with a 1/16-inch setting tolerance on a curved wall. Organized a trial placement before final cutting, adjusted the cut plan from the dry run, and wrote the step-by-step procedure the crew followed. The frame fit on the first weld-in.
- Unmapped slab under the work area. Found in November 2023, resolved through the design team and extra demolition with no schedule slip.
- Duct-bank reroute. A design change delivered by January 2024 so the new foundation could proceed on time.
- Schedule recovery. Cumulative changes put the project about six months behind. Led a schedule-acceleration review in July 2025 with the client, resequenced the loading dock behind the hatch, and added overtime shifts. Client concurred on the new finish date.
Project documentation is confidential under NDA and is not shared. The public record below is open.
Project data
- Owner
- Idaho National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy
- Structure
- Repurposed EBR-II containment, 80 ft diameter, 100 ft tall
- Scope
- Braced, controlled demolition of existing steel-and-concrete dome wall; four welded structural inserts; loading dock; life-safety upgrades
- Hatch
- 20 ft × 20 ft equipment hatch, set within 1/16 in.
- Crew
- 14 at peak, two shifts
- Changes
- 14 change orders, none disputed
- Safety
- 7 JSA revisions, zero lost-time incidents
- Access
- DOE site clearance, badging, and training; NDA
Timeline
- Jul–Oct 2023Award, subcontracts placed, kickoff
- Mar 2024All submittals approved
- Jan 2025$364K life-safety change order approved
- Mar 2025Dome cut-out begins under JSA Rev. 7
- Aug 2025Equipment hatch frame cut, welded, and fit
- Oct 2025Closeout package in progress at departure
- Apr 2026DOME opens as the first privately-developed microreactor test bed
In the public record
- DOME opened April 8, 2026 as the first test bed for privately developed microreactors, inside the repurposed EBR-II containment. INL release · DOE
- NRIC's construction timeline shows the October 2023 kickoff, the retaining wall, penetration demolition, and the equipment hatch installed in 2025. NRIC construction timeline · ANS feature
AISC Quality & Safety Management System
AISC 207-23 Certified Erector standard · Metal Deck and Seismic endorsements · Management Representative for Quality and Safety · Jul 2024–Sep 2025
Barin Group is a Pocatello-based industrial contractor working across eight western states, self-performing structural steel erection alongside electrical, piping, and millwright trades. It had no formal quality system when the decision was made to pursue AISC erector certification. I was assigned as Management Representative and wrote the system from a blank page, with an outside consultant (Pioneer Steel Services) for review and audit.
What was written
- Quality Management System and Safety Management System manual, Rev. 0 issued 22 Jul 2024
- Procedures PR-5 through PR-19: contract and specification review, document and data control, quality records, purchasing, material identification, welding, bolting, inspection, calibration, nonconformance, corrective action, training, internal audit
- About 25 controlled forms: RFI, contract review checklist, project turnover checklist, transmittals, approved supplier list, inspection and calibration logs, NCR and CAR logs, training records
- Site-Specific Erection Plan and Site-Specific Safety Plan templates; commencement-to-erect letter per OSHA 1926.752
- A documentation-requirements matrix mapping every procedure and form to a responsible role and project phase
- Plain-language SOP rewrites sorted by role for training
What was done with it
- Qualified 52 suppliers and subcontractors and built the approved-supplier list
- Completed QMS training and welding/bolting inspection training with the consultant (AWS D1.1, AISC 360-22 Chapter N, RCSC bolting)
- Recorded the July 2024 management review and set the company's first measured targets: EMR from 0.84 to 0.75, rework from about 5 to 2.5 hours per 100 worked, Procore company-wide by January 2025, customer and employee surveys
- Passed the 2024 third-party internal audit against AISC 207-23 with every criterion verified, including both endorsements
- Trained every role on its procedures; package marked ready for AISC submittal in September 2025
I left before AISC issued a decision, so I do not claim the certification itself. What I can show is the system, the audit result, and the training record.
Safety Program
OSHA 30 · Stand-in safety manager, Barin Group · MSHA and HAZWOPER trained
Safety manager duties ran alongside project management at Barin Group, on top of the OSHA 30 and the field background. The work was mostly writing and teaching.
- Fall-protection guidelines and the ladder and scaffolding training deck
- Site-Specific Safety Plans and Erection Plans for each steel project; crane lift plans; permit applications
- Job Safety Analyses with a risk-assessment matrix; daily pre-task planning forms
- Equipment pre-inspection checklist and foreman responsibility matrix (daily, weekly, monthly duties)
- Safety standdown meetings; vehicle and equipment inspection training; incident reporting
- EMR and TRIR tracking as inputs to the AISC management review
Field side
Earlier roles supplied the hands-on half: MSHA new-miner training and HAZWOPER during geohazard work, fall-protection, forklift, and aerial-lift evaluations at Barin Group, and years of being the person on the roof, in the trench, or in the basket.
Estimating
NWPX · Pipeline, 2025–present
Northwest Pipe Company is the largest manufacturer of engineered water-transmission pipe in North America. Four to six bids a month at roughly $10M combined, individual bids to $1.75M. Each starts with a specification review against AWWA and the ISO 9001 system, a scope determination, and an RFI and discrepancy list to the engineer; then takeoff, pricing, and client follow-through to award.
Barin Group · Structural steel, 2023–2025
All structural steel estimating for the company. The largest bid submitted was a $36M structural-steel scope for a 567,000 SF manufacturing plant in Washington, prepared shortly before I left; I cannot confirm the award. Built the weld calculation sheets used on every steel bid, the quote-comparison sheet, and the project profit tracker that fed the WIP report. Takeoff in Bluebeam with Excel cost sheets.
Byrd Underground · Utilities, 2022–2023
Byrd Underground is a Las Vegas wet- and dry-utility contractor in business since 1984. Hired as bid coordinator to gather vendor and subcontractor pricing for the estimators. Asked to estimate, took on jobs within months, and won a $1M utility project. This was the deliberate move from field to office.
Project Record
Contract values as recorded in company tracking · Owner names given, general contractors omitted · Contracts under $50K not listed
In the public record
- Jerome Readiness Center — groundbreaking July 6, 2023; dedicated June 29, 2026 as the Dirk Kempthorne Readiness Center. Groundbreaking · Dedication (DVIDS)
- AC Hotel / Element Boise Downtown — 296 rooms, 15 stories, 322,000 SF, opened May 2026; Boise's largest hotel. Opening release · Construction feature
- St. Regis Deer Valley, Snow Park Residences Phase II — 12 residences at the base of Deer Valley, completed 2025. Developer page
- Micron Boise — ID1 fab campus expansion, 15 new buildings and more than 8,000 tons of structural steel as of 2024. Micron · Aerials
- I-86 / I-15 System Interchange — eight new bridges, about 1M CY of excavation; completed summer 2025; ITD/AGC partnering award. ITD completion page · Feature
Field Years
2010s–2023 · Carpentry, geohazard drilling, highway survey, equipment
GeoStabilization International, 2021–2022
GeoStabilization International is a design-build geohazard mitigation contractor working across the United States and Canada: emergency landslide repair, rockfall, soil-nail walls, and grouting, with its own fleet of limited-access drill rigs. Crews of four to six deployed to failing slopes and roadways, often rural and mountainous, across roughly 20 jobsites in the western United States, including an airport, a state emergency response, and cased piles for custom homes and pools in a Las Vegas-area luxury development.
Worked every position on the wall: drill-rig operation, hydraulic soil-nail layout and installation, grouting, mesh and plate placement, and shotcrete. Served as crew lead on some jobs and brought new operators up to speed in the field. Was being fast-tracked toward superintendent before transitioning away from travel work for my family.
Sundt Construction, 2023
Sundt is one of the largest employee-owned general contractors in the country. Road survey on its $111.9M I-86/I-15 System Interchange reconstruction in Pocatello (Sundt-Cannon joint venture for the Idaho Transportation Department): Trimble GPS layout, grade verification, translating plans into machine-control points, and setting stakes with elevations and alignments for excavation, grading, bridge approaches, and paving. Ran the front loader and roller when survey was caught up.
JD Customs, 2019–2021
Commercial concrete and framing contractor in Pocatello. Roughly a dozen buildings: two kidney dialysis centers, a large clinic in Idaho Falls, a car dealership, a resort hotel in Jackson, Wyoming, and shop buildings. Concrete, rough framing, sheathing, roofing, doors and windows.
Residential carpentry
Started at about sixteen on my father's framing crew and worked up through several ground-up home builds.
Equipment operated
Before Construction Management
In-home care, field supervisor
At nineteen or twenty, supervised all field staff for an in-home mental health care provider: staff training, medication certification, scheduling, and writing the daily work plans and summaries. First supervisory role, and the first job that was mostly documentation.
Professional kitchens
Worked in a number of restaurant kitchens as a cook and chef between construction jobs.
Family businesses
Helped my mother run small businesses, including a VR gaming store I managed. Where the habit of building things outside work started.
Technology
Self-taught over the last several years, mostly in the evenings
Self-hosted home lab
A rack-mounted cluster of mini PCs and a storage server running services I use daily: Home Assistant automations (lighting, locks, cameras, thermostat, a wall-mounted dashboard), a vehicle maintenance log, local AI inference, and an agent runtime that runs complex tasks on local models with a cloud API as fallback. Remote access over Tailscale.
AI-directed software
I am not a professional programmer. I specify, review, and test; coding agents implement. Shipped this way: an appointment-setting and expense-tracking application and a front-end website for a dog-grooming business, and a business website for a published author.
CAD and 3D printing
FreeCAD for part design and drafting. Original models printed on an Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2, with a small print shop starting up. Current personal project: a full architectural model of my house with floor plans and elevations.
Business
Short-term rental
Own and operate a two-bedroom short-term rental in Pocatello, listed on Airbnb, VRBO, Booking.com, and Google. Hospitable manages rates, availability, and calendars across channels. I handle guest communication, turnover logistics, and the Idaho lodging-tax remittance one channel does not collect (6% state sales, 2% travel and convention, 5% auditorium district).
Author business management
Managing and promoting a published author's business: contracts, legalities, and promotion. New territory, learned the same way as everything else.
Print shop
Original 3D-printed designs sold through an existing online shop, with the design work done in FreeCAD.
Training Record
Education: GED, completed at Idaho State University · No degree · Certificate scans on request
| Credential | Issuer | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| OSHA 30-Hour Construction | Great Lakes OSHA Education Center | Feb 2024 | Current |
| OSHA 10-Hour Construction | Great Plains OSHA Education Center | Jul 2021 | Current |
| Google Project Management Certificate | Coursera (six courses) | Jul 2022 | Complete |
| Quality Management System training | Pioneer Steel Services | Jul 2024 | Complete |
| Welding and Bolting Inspection training | Pioneer Steel Services | Jul 2024 | Complete |
| Bluebeam Cloud | Bluebeam University | Mar 2024 | Complete |
| Fall Protection, Forklift, Aerial Lift | Employer evaluation | Nov 2023 | Complete |
| Job Cost Management; Project Leadership; Project Delivery Methods | NECA / Maxim Consulting seminars | Jul 2025 | Attended |
| MSHA Surface New Miner (Form 5000-23) | MSHA via employer | Aug 2021 | Trained · refresher lapsed |
| HAZWOPER | Employer | 2021 | Trained · refresher lapsed |
| Adult First Aid / CPR / AED | American Red Cross | Jul 2021 | Expired Jul 2023 |